The Road Not Taken
by Writer's Block Inc
Summary: Edogawa Conan and Kudo Shinichi had always been one and the same, a single entity with two different bodies. Then the antidote went wrong. Between a childhood friend who has no recollection of ever having left her and a pseudo-kid brother that can't help but get in trouble, Ran's not sure which is worse. CURRENTLY ON HIATUS.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary: **Edogawa Conan and Kudo Shinichi had always been one and the same, a single entity with two different bodies. Then the antidote went wrong. Between a childhood friend who has no recollection of ever having left her and a pseudo-kid brother that can't help but get in trouble, Ran's not sure which is worse.

**A/N: **Before anybody asks about it, there are a lot of pairings (mainly canon ones). I'm hoping to include all of the characters in the story, including some that should appear again in the series (like Agasa's first love, for instance). The only deviant to canon involved in the story is Conan/Ai, which will (gasp) co-exist with ShinRan.

**Disclaimer: **As is formality, I do not own anything Detective Conan related except merchandise.

* * *

We all make mistakes sometimes. It's just that some of those mistakes have much greater consequences than others. Take the current situation, for example.

"Hey, glasses kid. What're you doing wearing my clothes?" Kudo Shinichi, Great Detective of the East extraordinaire, gestured at Edogawa Conan, shrunken Great Detective of the East extraordinaire. The latter only gave him a deadpan look.

'_Because I'm you, idiot.'_ He chose not to say those words aloud to, well, himself. Supposing that this was really happening and Conan wasn't just having a really (_really_) bad nightmare, he guessed that maybe he _wouldn't_ be talking to _himself_, per se.

"I wouldn't be worrying about that if I were you," he replied instead, absentmindedly wondering where the heck Haibara had gone to after administering the antidote. It wasn't like it was her fault (oh wait, maybe it was), but as the instigator of this predicament, she should have been obligated to stay there. How in the world had this even happened?

_FLASHBACKTIMESKIP_

"_Kudo-kun, you'll be happy to know that after all that dawdling I've been doing, the antidote is finally finished."_

Okay, so maybe she hadn't actually said it like that. It was close enough, he wagered.

"_Unfortunately, there are some major side effects that come with testing it." The boy was already brimming with excitement at the prospect of a working, possibly permanent, antidote. So what if there were a few minor setbacks? If he could go back to being Kudo Shinichi, it would all be worth it. Unless he died, of course. Then there'd be no point anyway._

"_What's the catch?"_

"_Death." Oh, ha ha. "However, as death is a necessary side effect to all of the antidotes, there is something else I must advise. This antidote is a double-edged sword. I've altered the formula in such a way that the Apotoxin shall be completely removed from your body upon ingestion. In other words…"_

"_I only have one shot at this," he finished, a serious look appearing on his face. The girl before him nodded grimly._

"_Correct. After this antidote, all traces of the poison will be erased from your bloodstream and no antidotes following this one shall work. Based only on the experiments I've done with rats, I'm confident that this is the real thing. However, with the lack of any human test subjects aside from yourself, I do not know the exact dosage that will maximize the chances of success. Too little will doom all chances of you ever reverting back to Kudo Shinichi; too much will likely end up in death one way or another. It's your choice, Kudo-kun. You can choose to take this antidote and hope someone up there loves you, or you can wait until we obtain the drug's data from the Organization so that I can assure your recovery." A silence fell over the room as Conan contemplated on the possibilities. _

_The antidote had never been a one hundred percent kind of thing, much like the drug it was meant to counteract. If he took it now, there was a chance he may never return to his normal self. The young scientist stood patiently, watching the creasing of the detective's brow as he seemed to glare at the capsule on the table. She had been a bit skeptical about introducing him to what she believed may be the true antidote. It wasn't just the dangers of death as it usually was, nor was it the immunity he had slowly been building up from previous cures. _

_No, there was another side effect she had yet to mention to him, but it had only occurred one time in the hundreds of rats she performed the test on. The chances of him doing _that_ instead were almost zero to none. _

"…_I'll take it." Ai looked up into Conan's adamant eyes, finding no hesitation within them. She wasn't surprised. She gave him a glass of water to take with the tablet (she'd told him to drink all of the water before the transformation began as it would help dilute the antidote and, in the event that it didn't work, prevent some of the poison from being destroyed) and sat on the couch opposite him, preparing to observe the effects of the new formula. _

_He gripped the cup of water to steel his resolve before downing the pill and tipping his head back to drain all of the water as well. As the glass clinked on the coffee table, he waited for the usual symptoms to occur within him, mentally preparing himself for the bone melting experience. For about ten seconds after completely swallowing the pill, nothing happened. He almost thought it hadn't worked at all. Then, in a flash, the pain shot through him faster than a bullet, ripping his insides apart. It wasn't the same feeling as other antidotes; usually his body would be heating up so much that steam would seem to rise from every orifice on his skin. This time, he felt like his body was trying to tear itself in two, as if two opposing forces were yanking on his limbs, making half of his body want to go one way and the other half the other way. _

_Before he blacked out, he saw the rather astonished look on Ai's face, as well as the overwhelming disbelief. _

_ENDFLASHBACKTIMESKIP_

Oh yeah, that's how. After he'd woken up, he realized that Haibara was nowhere to be seen and that he was still Edogawa Conan. Anger and disappointment had welled up in him so fast that he felt he was going to vomit. Unfortunately, after seeing himself—the _real_ him—on the couch beside him, his frustration had quickly become shock. There, in all his covered-by-a-blanket-because-he-was-naked glory, was Kudo Shinichi, in the flesh. As in, Kudo Shinichi, the real thing, sitting next to _Edogawa Conan_, also Kudo Shinichi. He'd been thrown for a loop at the impossibility of something like this happening. There had only been one thing that'd crossed his mind at that moment.

_Haibara has A LOT of explaining to do. _

Speaking of which, ever since he'd awoken, she'd been missing. It was plausible that she'd been the one to throw the blanket over his—well, his clone's—naked form (he shifted uncomfortably at the thought of the scientist seeing things she shouldn't have), and was off to find some clothing. In the meantime, he had to figure out the existence of this strange clone. As such, he was now sitting here, attempting to stave off the curious looks Clone Shinichi was giving him.

"What're you talking about? Why am I in the Professor's house? And…naked?" At the last bit, his face had taken on a rosy hue, his hands tugging insecurely at the meager blankets he was forced to use to cover his decency. Conan vaguely wondered about how much this Shinichi really knew. His memories had to stop somewhere, but "where" was the question.

"I'll explain all of that later. Right now, what's the last thing you remember?" He figured that'd be a good place to start. Clone Shinichi looked like he was trying hard to remember, but a roadblock seemed to have set up home in his mind.

"Well, I remember being at Tropical Land with Ran…then there was some case. I solved it, of course," Clone Shinichi grinned cockily over at Conan, who looked less than amused. Had he really been that arrogant? No matter, it wasn't like his older self was going to be getting anything out of him. Conan couldn't be impressed by things that _he_ had done. "Then there were these two guys in black. They were really suspicious, so I followed them. If I recall, there was some kind of transaction. After that…everything gets kind of fuzzy. I feel like I know it, but it's right there, at the tip of my tongue."

Ah, so essentially, it was everything from before he had become Conan. That made some sense, he supposed. But why?

"Anyways, who was that little girl earlier? The Professor definitely doesn't have a daughter, or any grandchildren, and he lives by himself. And on the subject, who are _you_, exactly?" Little girl? Oh, he must've been talking about Haibara.

"I regained consciousness before you did, how'd you know a little girl was here?" Conan asked his clone, if only for the effect (and to deflect the question about himself). He probably knew the deduction already, but it was a good way to know whether or not this clone had retained some of his deductive reasoning.

"I heard a female voice as I was regaining consciousness and didn't recognize it. Although it sounded mature, too mature to be someone young, I heard her footsteps as she walked over and found her voice to be much closer to me than I expected. There were no extraneous rustling sounds of clothing, so she couldn't have been an older person bending down. Therefore, I deduced that it was a younger girl."

"Looks like I haven't changed too much," Conan muttered to himself, though Clone Shinichi had heard and was effectively confused. The bespectacled boy turned back to his counterpart, ready to explain the situation, but was interrupted just as he opened his mouth.

"Kudo-kun and…Kudo-kun." Both boys turned their heads towards the new voice, one accompanied by a bemused look. There was a bundle of clothes in her arms and a number of other equipment, as well as a completely baffled professor.

"Shinichi and…Shinichi?! What's going on?!" Ai had taken the liberty of seating herself directly across from the two detectives, tossing the bundle over to the exposed teenager. The teen simply looked back at her, as if beseeching her to do something. She simply smirked, sending a nervous chill up Clone Shinichi's spine at how much older than her age she looked.

"Don't be so abashed, Kudo-kun. It's nothing I haven't seen before." The teen in question just gaped at how she addressed him and the audacity of her statement.

"How could—"

"We'll clear everything up soon, but you may want to be clothed first," Conan advised his clone, stopping him from completing the obvious question. Her statement, however, had indeed unnerved him as well. It was so strange, looking at himself sitting next to him. Talking to himself.

Once the clone was properly clothed and decent, Ai began to use some of the equipment she'd brought with her.

"I want to run some tests on both of you to make sure there aren't any irregularities. There's no telling what other effects may have occurred." As she began by taking Clone Shinichi's temperature, Conan decided it was a good time to ask the thing he'd been wondering since waking up.

"Oi, Haibara. You didn't say anything about getting cloned." Temperature seemed normal enough, she supposed. He certainly wasn't sick or anything.

"The chance of replication occurring was slim to nothing. On the test rats, it only happened one time out of over a hundred trials. With rats being much smaller, I had never expected humans to be able to do the same." There were no irregularities in anything physical that she could determine. "I have a theory about _him_," and at this, she gestured over to the bewildered detective, "but in order to confirm it, I need to do a fingerprint analysis."

"You don't think he could be…" She looked up from her tests to meet his eyes. It was only a split second, but a similar thought crossed their minds. Her nod only affirmed his suspicions.

"A legitimate Kudo Shinichi? Yes. In fact, if my hypothesis is correct, the poison will have vanished from your body and you will no longer be able to transform back. The fingerprint test will be able to determine if you and he are still the same person. My guess is not likely. Rather similar to clones, it's impossible for him to share your fingerprint. The question is whether or not the biggest alteration, besides age, occurred mentally rather than physically."

"He says he only remembers up until the point when Gin knocked me out. Everything afterwards is blank in his mind." At this, Ai took on a contemplative look. Her chin cupped between her thumb and index finger, she concentrated on figuring out what was happening.

"It's possible that, during the cloning process, this Kudo Shinichi's brain cells only gathered enough information from your own to match his age. The Apotoxin caused a de-aging process, but thoughts and memories from before you shrank were retained. He may have obtained those memories from you when he was separating from your body. There is also a possibility that not only memories, but thoughts and feelings as well have been affected."

"I suppose that's true."

"Um, could someone tell me what's going on? Apotoxin? Shrank? Clone?" The two not-children glanced over at the completely lost adolescent before sharing a look. "Why does she keep calling that little kid 'Kudo-kun'? I don't have a little brother or any other relatives that are his age." At this point, pulling out of his stupor, the professor pulled the two shrinkees aside. Clone Shinichi looked just as confused as ever.

"Are you really going to tell him?" The professor looked questioningly at the two, both of whom had unreadable expressions on their faces. It was Ai who spoke first.

"We may not have a choice. He may not remember anything after blacking out, but the Organization certainly does. If Kudo-kun's clone goes out in public and makes himself noticeable, it won't be long before _they'll_ be after him. Then it's only a matter of time before they attack all of his loved ones."

"It's highly probable that he won't believe us, too. Nobody would believe in a drug that causes the victim to de-age. If I know myself, he'll find the idea ridiculous."

"Then what can we do?" Conan thought about the professor's question for a moment before the usual lightbulb illuminated in his mind. Both Professor Agasa and Ai recognized that face instantly and leaned in closer.

"All we need to do is keep him out of the spotlight. We don't need to mention the drug or the fact that I'm actually him. We just need to tell him about the Organization's existence and why he needs to keep a low profile. Nothing about who we are. I'll tell him that I'm a distant cousin of his, convince him to go with that story. Haibara's the Professor's friend's daughter that's currently staying in Japan because her parents are away. He'll be a lot harder to fool since he'll get suspicious of us the minute we say something no normal seven-year old would say, but since the prospect of teenagers shrinking into grade schoolers is pretty fantastical, I think we're in the clear."

"Oh, good idea, Shinichi!" The professor whispered over, being careful not to draw attention from the other Shinichi. Ai just smirked slightly.

"It's 'Conan' now, Hakase. If all assumptions are correct, they're technically no longer the same person. Slipping up in front of Kudo-kun could lead to disaster on our part, isn't that right, Edogawa-kun?"

"She's right. To be safe, my name is officially Edogawa Conan now. I can still go with having the same birthday as the occurrence isn't impossible. The problem is—"

As if destined to interrupt Conan's sentence at the most crucial moment, the door to the professor's home opened, revealing the childhood friend that they'd had no time to prepare for.

"Conan-kun?"


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **So, thanks for all the reviews I got for chapter one. As always, constructive criticism is welcome.

**Fluehatraya: **I'm glad you think so.

**BrookeRan1414: **It's nice to meet people with the same interests, ha ha. After a certain point, I started seeing Conan and Shinichi as two different people rather than being the same person, so it wasn't difficult for me to see one with someone and the other with someone else. In this respect, I'm not a big ShinShi fan because to my mind, they've never met.

* * *

_RECAP_

_"She's right. To be safe, my name is officially Edogawa Conan now. I can still go with having the same birthday as the occurrence isn't impossible. The problem is—"_

_As if destined to interrupt Conan's sentence at the most crucial moment, the door to the professor's home opened, revealing the childhood friend that they'd had no time to prepare for._

_"Conan-kun?"_

* * *

To say the whole room had gone tense would've been an understatement. Actually, one particular side of the room had gone tense. Shinichi stared in the brown-haired girl's direction the minute she'd spoken, as if her voice had drawn him to it. As it turns out, she had yet to notice the tension and was still innocently looking for her younger brother.

"Hakase? Is Conan-kun here with you?" With the rotund man in front of the two children, it was hard for her to see them, but Conan took this as his chance to take full control of her attention before she saw the _other_ occupant in the room.

"Right here, Ran-neechan!" In his most childish voice, he bounded up to her as if he hadn't seen her in years. The octaves his voice had jumped and the wide, face-engulfing grin on his face should've made Ran suspicious as to his intentions, but thankfully for him, she had no such ideas.

"Ah, there you are, Conan-kun! It's almost dinner time, so I came to get you."

"Why didn't you just call me? I brought my cell phone."

"Well, actually—"

"Oi, Ran. You know this kid?" Shit. _We should've taped his mouth up when we had the chance._ In the blink of an eye, all of Ran's person had been redirected to the oh-so-familiar voice.

"Um, Ran-neechan?" Unfortunately, all of his petty attempts at recapturing her undivided attention were in vain. With wide eyes, she took a hesitant step forward, almost unbelieving of her childhood friend's presence.

"Sh-Shinichi? Is that…really you?" The look "Shinichi" gave her was almost priceless.

"Hah? What're you talking about? I went to Tropical Land with you recently!" _Oh crap_. By the odd look on Ran's face, one of the other three needed to come up with an excuse _fast_.

"O-oh! We actually found Shinichi in front of his house! He, um, he lost his memory from a freak accident during that big case he was working on, so they excused him. That's how we found him," the professor quickly lied, frantically waving his arms about for a believable excuse.

"Did I hear 'Shinichi'?" A familiar voice called, causing Conan to freeze in place. _Oh no, please tell me it's not…_

"Oh, uh, I was about to tell Conan-kun that Sera-san wanted to come over and that's why I walked over here instead of calling," Ran admitted, still trying to absorb all of this new information. As if on cue, the female detective peered curiously from behind Ran, finally spying the bewildered teenager on the couch. Then she noted the presence of Conan in the same general location as the "missing" high school detective.

"So, this is the oft-spoken of high school detective Kudo Shinichi," she finally said, grinning at this new turn of events. And poor Shinichi, who had not a clue about what was happening, decided to bring all of this confusion to an end.

"Can someone _please_ tell me what's going on?!" In the span of time it took him to burst, Conan had found his way back over to the other two (Ai had chosen a particular spot that would prevent that Masumi girl from seeing her) so that they could discuss a game plan.

"Well, what do we do now?"

"Damn it. With Ran here, we can't talk about the Organization, which means we can't tell him to stay out of news conferences and reports."

"We can consider filling him into the details about _them_ after the others have left. For now, it's highly recommended for us to just create a backstory for his mysterious re-appearance."

"That's true, but then it comes down to where he'll be staying. With Subaru-san staying at 'his' house, he'll want an explanation for why someone was allowed to stay there in the first place. I can't just tell him, 'I loaned your house to someone because it used to be mine.' That'd be absurd."

"We can get over that hurdle when we get there. I think he's waiting for an answer," the professor quickly butt in, the three piercing gazes poking holes in the back of his lab coat. Conan quickly took his place in front of the professor to begin the story of how "Shinichi-niichan" miraculously re-appeared and somehow cover up for all the times he'd used his own name in order to bypass suspicion.

"Like Hakase said, Shinichi-niichan was in front of his house when I found him on the way here. I didn't know why he was out cold, but I asked Hakase to come help me get him somewhere else. He woke up a couple minutes ago and I asked him how much he remembered. He said he only remembered going to Tropical Land with Ran-neechan, so he doesn't remember ever talking or meeting me," the glasses-wearing boy quickly explained to Ran and Sera. "He doesn't remember telling me that Subaru-san could use his house either."

"Wait, what? Someone's using my house?"

"His apartment burned down during a case, so Conan-kun said he e-mailed you asking if he could use the house. You told him he could," Ran recalled. If it was possible for Shinichi to be anymore befuddled, he would've been. Of course, if he didn't remember anything after Tropical Land, he didn't know anything about the FBI, the possible death of Akai, the confession in London, or anything else in between. Ran didn't know whether to take this as a blessing or a curse.

"And? So who's this kid in the glasses wearing my old clothes? Or the girl staying with Hakase?" At the mention of the little girl, Sera seemed to perk up a bit.

"That's Conan-kun, a distant cousin of yours that came to stay in Japan. His parents left him at my dad's agency, so he's living with me right now. The little girl is Ai-chan. I think she's a relative of Hakase's?" At this, Ran looked over questioningly at the professor for confirmation.

"Actually, she's one of my friend's daughter's, but she's been left in my care."

"Ah, that's right. And this is Sera-san, a female detective that's attending our school now." _I'm being awfully calm about all of this_, Ran couldn't help thinking. She'd remembered all the nights she would cry after getting off the phone, or all the times he'd called her when she was in trouble to help her, or even the times she would try to reach out to him mentally when she really needed the support. All of his previous appearances had left her more confused than the last, unsure of what he was doing while he was gone. She briefly noted how all of his appearances ended with him becoming feverish and leaving in a hurry. This time seemed different for some reason.

"Do you remember at all what you were doing before you lost your memories?" Ran asked almost out of the blue, surprising the others in the room. _It's suspiciously convenient how he finally shows up but has no memory of what he's been doing all this time. Is he planning on keeping his activities from me by pretending to have amnesia?_

"Hm…before my memories start to get really fuzzy, I remembered these two guys in black. The ones that were on that rollercoaster ride with us? I followed them, and you tried to stop me, but your shoelace broke. They were having a transaction of some kind, so I tried to listen in on their deal. Then I got hit on the head. After that is completely blank." There was a sincere look on the boy's face that told Ran he wasn't lying to her about knowing nothing else. But this new information had her thinking. _Maybe those two guys in black did something to him that made him lose his memories? But that's impossible, he's shown up several times in the past year or so and hasn't had any kind of memory loss. And he can't be Conan-kun since they've been in the same room before. _Although the information didn't seem to be piecing anything together for Ran, Sera seemed to have other plans with these new details.

"Ah, I just remembered! I need to be getting home. I'll see you tomorrow in school, alright?" And before Ran could get another word in, Sera was out the door, a faux apologetic expression on her face. _Things are starting to get interesting_, she mused internally, a grin on her face as she turned the corner.

"Geez, it was her idea to come over here," Ran mumbled, hands on her hips. Her grievances with the female detective were soon forgotten, however, when it occurred to her that Shinichi had nowhere to stay. "If Subaru-san is staying at Shinichi's house, where's Shinichi staying?"

"I can arrange for him to stay here until we sort everything else out. For now, maybe it's better if Shinichi got some rest. It's been an…interesting day," the professor offered, earning a nod from the worried girl. She turned her sights to Conan instead.

"Are you coming home for dinner, Conan-kun?" The boy only smiled at her in response.

"I'll be back in a little bit, Ran-neechan. You can go home first." She seemed uncertain of that at first, but slowly, she made her way out the door, waving a little longer than necessary at the group. With her out of the picture, the kiddish expression on his face quickly fell, leaving Shinichi to wonder about the necessity of this Conan kid's façade.

"What're you hiding from Ran?" Shinichi asked suddenly, taking the other three by surprise. Despite being out of the know, it had only occurred to them now that Shinichi was still Shinichi, and his observation skills were still top-notch. It was going to be difficult keeping him from knowing if he was going to think everything they were doing was suspicious.

"Actually, we were going to talk to you about that, Shinichi," began Professor Agasa. "But we need you to promise not to tell her either."

"…It's something dangerous, isn't it?" By the seriousness of the situation, he didn't need them to answer to know. "If it keeps her from getting hurt, I won't tell."

"Good," Conan started, surprised at his own lack of jealousy. _Maybe because he IS me. I can't be jealous of myself, can I?_ "First things first: those men that knocked you out. They're from a crime syndicate known as the Black Organization. You were watching them during an illegal monetary transaction, so one of the members' partners knocked you out while you weren't paying attention. They attempted to kill you, but since you're here now, obviously that wasn't the case. However, they _think_ you're dead, so if they find out you've been alive all this time, they'll track you down and kill you, plus everyone close to you that you may have told about them."

"We need you to keep a low profile when in public and avoid appearing in any kind of media," Ai continued, deciding not to comment about the cases that appear around him. "If the Organization can get any kind of indication that Kudo Shinichi is still alive and is able to blab about their existence, they won't hesitate to take action. That includes endangering the detective agency girl."

It took him a second to comprehend the magnitude of what they were telling him, but he also realized that no normal first graders could possibly know about this and wisely keep it a secret like this.

"Who exactly _are_ you two? And how could you know what happened to me?" It was odd, but he felt strangely connected to the little boy in oversized glasses (weren't those his dad's?). All of this stuff about an organization also seemed so vaguely familiar, but he still couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Right now, that's on a need-not-to-know basis. To you, I'm just a distant relative, and she's just the professor's friend's daughter. The only other person that knows about _them_ is Hattori Heiji." Shinichi blanched at this admittance.

"Hattori Heiji? My rival?"

"In any case, I'm going back to the detective agency. I'll SMS Hattori and fill him in on what's happening right now," Conan called as he made way for the door, ignoring Shinichi's last comment. "We're most likely stopping by here on the way to school, so we'll decide our next move then."

As the professor began setting up a bed for Shinichi, the young detective could only wallow in this new situation that he had no clue about. He'd gone from a normal celebratory outing with his childhood friend to waking up with no memories, his life at risk by some huge criminal organization that he didn't even remember discovering.

_What in the world is going on?_


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **So, I'm sorry for the slow update. Unfortunately, the next couple of weeks are for exams, and there's only so many hours in a day to spend. It'll be a little slow for now, but it'll pick up once everything's done and over with. Hopefully.

On another note, beginning from the next chapter onwards, I'll be focusing on certain groups instead of everyone at once (for example, I'll have a chapter primarily focusing on the Detective Boys and their interactions). This is because I can't have everyone in the same location so conveniently all the time, but want to spend some time with each character. At multiple points, the groups and their activities will coincide with other groups, so don't think that from this point and beyond, they'll barely ever interact with one another.

**Monica Moss:** Thanks, I appreciate your appreciation for my strange humor, ha ha.

**Fluehatraya: **Actually, I was already planning on going more into detail on his amnesia, his feelings about it, and how it affects the other characters. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll leave it there.

**DarkAlchemistAssassin: **Unfortunately, Hattori couldn't quite make it for this chapter, but I'm positive he won't stand to be away for the next one.

As always, I really do enjoy reading all of the feedback I get.

* * *

_RECAP_

_"In any case, I'm going back to the detective agency. I'll SMS Hattori and fill him in on what's happening right now," Conan called as he made way for the door, ignoring Shinichi's last comment. "We're most likely stopping by here on the way to school, so we'll decide our next move then."_

_As the professor began setting up a bed for Shinichi, the young detective could only wallow in this new situation that he had no clue about. He'd gone from a normal celebratory outing with his childhood friend to waking up with no memories, his life at risk by some huge criminal organization that he didn't even remember discovering._

What in the world is going on?

* * *

True to word, Ran and Conan arrived fresh and early the next morning at Professor Agasa's doorstep, ready to begin a brand new day.

"Sleep well, Edogawa-kun?"

"Shut up."

Well, _one_ of them was ready. Despite her comment, Conan did look exceptionally bedraggled this morning. It hadn't been surprising, really. Ran had been anxious the whole night, wondering if Shinichi was going to disappear in the morning if she didn't try (and Conan made sure the key word here was _try_) calling him every five minutes, and Conan had the self-assigned obligation to make sure she actually went to sleep so that she wouldn't end up looking like a zombie the next day. In the end, he'd settled with grudgingly sending her to sleep using his stun gun wrist watch, only to find that he himself couldn't get to sleep. At breakfast, she'd oh-so-cheerfully graced him with a "You look awful, Conan-kun!" and "Didn't you get any sleep?" He oh-so-gracefully dropped his head into his rice bowl.

"Are you ready to come back to school, Shinichi?" The look of pure elation that lit up Ran's face when Shinichi appeared from the doorway (with Ai, but that's not important), dressed familiarly in his white dress shirt, green tie, and blue blazer, was enough to bring Conan's own spirits up a bit, even if he felt like collapsing in the street and just sleeping on the pavement. She hadn't been that happy since the school play. At least this time, it didn't look like Shinichi was just going to become feverish and disappear again.

"Have I missed a lot?" He questioned, a legitimate inquiry considering he'd lost a chunk of his year.

"Of course you have, it's been a whole year. I'm sure it won't be too difficult for a detective geek like you, though," she teased playfully, eliciting the response she remembered fondly from before he'd left: a pout, a mildly embarrassed blush, and a resounding "che!" followed by a barely audible grumble. Her giggle brought a tiny grin back on his face, and suddenly they were laughing as if they'd never been separated.

"You know Shinichi, I really missed you this past year, missed _this_," she finally admitted, wiping her eyes from all the laughing. "It's been a long time since we just…talked. In person, not over a phone." Her expression became nostalgic and somewhat dampened, but Shinichi merely looked at her as if she was crazy.

"Idiot, I'm here now, aren't I? Don't get weepy on me now." He folded his hands behind his head in true Shinichi manner, his eyes looking somewhere off to his left rather than at his companion. There was a brief moment of silence before, "Hey, you'll tell me about it, right?"

"About what?" Ran looked over at her detective friend, but he seemed to be trying his best to look at everything but her.

"The past year, the memories I don't have. You said I was away for a long time, but I don't remember any of that. Because I…" He trailed off, his cheeks coloring ever-so-slightly as to be almost unnoticeable.

"Because you…?" She'd lent into him, trying to read his expression despite his rather weak attempts to hide anything in his face that might give him away. Instead, he'd settled with simply playing it off and keeping his thoughts to himself.

"Ah, it's nothing. Are we meeting up with Sonoko?"

"Oh, there she is now!" At the sight of her best friend, Ran quickly raced over to tell her the good news about Shinichi's return. The high school detective just smiled at his friend's enthusiasm, shaking his head at himself for almost slipping before jogging to catch up with the other two, one of whom looked ready to give him a good talking-to about his spoken-of absence.

_Idiot, it's because I can't imagine being away from you for that long._

* * *

Meanwhile, the two shrunken teens quietly detached themselves from the sentimental reunion taking place right next to them (not that the two noticed them anyways, but that's besides the point).

"You seem surprisingly okay with this new development, Edogawa-kun." In truth, Conan had been a little shocked himself to find that, as his grown-up self became re-acquainted with his "sister" of the past year, he felt no negative feelings towards his clone when he should've been seething with jealousy. Originally, he'd chalked it up to the incapability of being jealous of oneself, but now that they were technically no longer the same person, this wouldn't hold true.

"I don't know, it's like my feelings for her just…vanished." It took him a moment to realize just how silly he sounded for saying that, but rather than mocking the other about the idiocy of such a possibility, Ai looked deep in thought, as if she was trying to piece something together. "What I mean to say is, I still care about her a lot, but it's not like, you know, before. I love her like I'm _actually_ seven now. Is it possible that…?"

"It isn't completely improbable. Perhaps when you were cloned, your feelings for Mouri-san transferred over to the older version of yourself. It's as if the counteragent succeeded in separating your identity into Kudo Shinichi and Edogawa Conan, both physically and mentally. Kudo Shinichi in his purest form only experienced up until he was knocked out and fed the poison. Perhaps the antidote took into account the fact that each identity could be categorized based on the absence or presence of the Apotoxin in your body."

"Haibara, do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?"

"Do you realize you were just cloned due to taking a pill meant to cure the first pill that de-aged you ten years?" It was perhaps the way she'd worded it, but he'd never realized just how crazy their situation really was from an outside point of view. It was a wonder if anyone would ever believe such a story when they decided to reveal their secret identities. He was about to make another comment to her, but she'd already stopped in her tracks and was giving him a rather deadpan look.

"I hope you don't plan for me to fix this, too." To her astonishment, Conan seemed to stop for a moment, his visage giving away nothing as they seemed to search each other for any faltering in poker face. One second passed. Then two. Then, for a split, blink-and-you'll-miss-it second, something seemed to flash in the young boy's eyes and he broke into an enigmatic grin instead, his hands finding their way into the pockets of his shorts and his head turned to look at the group of teenagers.

"You know what? Maybe it won't be so bad this way. With Ran finally happy again, it's like a huge weight's been lifted off my shoulders. I can't be suspected of being Kudo Shinichi anymore because I'm not, which means I'm free to just be myself in front of adults." He ticked off each point with his fingers before turning to face her fully, taking in the slightly surprised expression she donned. The smile he was sending her was so radiant, she had the sudden urge to put sunglasses on. "This antidote didn't give me my body back, but maybe it gave me one better. For the first time since becoming Conan, I feel like I can actually be a kid again, Haibara."

The response hadn't been what she'd expected. _Maybe the antidote did something to his head, aside from the obvious alteration of his feelings._ Before she could burst his bubble with a "Yes, because that huge organization that wants both myself and Kudo Shinichi dead doesn't _really_ exist," the other three children showed up to join the trek to school. The Detective Boys usually met up with them at another junction, but the three kids admitted to being drawn to the loud yelling Sonoko was doing in the middle of the street.

"We heard Sonoko-oneesan from down the block," Mitsuhiko had said, pointing in the direction they'd just come from.

"Hey, who's this guy?" Genta was looking over at the yelling brunette ("Do you realize how long it's been, you detective freak?! If I were you, I'd…") and the poor teenager at the focus of her rage. Ayumi looked positively offended by the question, as if she'd been personally wronged somehow.

"What do you mean, Genta-kun?! It's Ran-oneesan's boyfriend, Shinichi-niisan! Don't you remember?" At this particular statement, both aforementioned people turned red and immediately made to clear up the misunderstanding.

"It's not like that!"

"We're just childhood friends!"

Nobody in the vicinity was convinced.

"Come to think of it, who are these kids?" In a ditch effort, Shinichi attempted to steer the conversation away from himself and Ran by turning the focus to the three children he didn't recognize. He hadn't been expecting the confident looks on their faces. Or the strange, Sentai-Ranger-like poses.

"We're the Detective Boys!" They exclaimed simultaneously, trying to maintain serious looks and flaunting their detective badges. Shinichi sweatdropped, beginning to regret he'd asked. _Oi, oi, really?_

"I'm Kojima Genta, the leader of the Detective Boys!" The plump boy introduced.

"I'm Tsubaraya Mitsuhiko, nice to meet you, Shinichi-niisan."

"And I'm Yoshida Ayumi! Conan-kun and Ai-chan are in the Detective Boys, too," she added, gesturing towards the two not-children that had only just then realized they were being included in the conversation. For the sake of appearances, Conan gave his best kid smile. At the mention of the other two, Shinichi's interest was piqued. Unbeknownst to the others in the group, an exchange of blows flew between the three geniuses as they seemed to communicate through fleeting glances alone.

"So? What is it you guys do?" Shinichi finally decided to ask, kneeling down to the children's level so he didn't have to look down. Off to the side, Conan and Ai gave each other a look.

_He suspects us, doesn't he?_

_Looks like it._

_Guess telling him our true identities were on a "need-not-to-know basis" wasn't such a good idea, hm, Edogawa-kun?_

_Whatever._

"Don't you guys think we should be getting to school? We're gonna be late if we keep sitting around talking," Conan finally butted in, an exasperated expression aimed at the lovely little conversation Shinichi seemed to have struck up with the kids. Said detective promptly smiled, but replaced it with feigned urgency instead.

"Glasses Kiddo's right, we should get going. It was nice meeting you, Detective Boys. Always a pleasure to meet some of my fans," he ended with a smirk and a wink, dragging the other two girls in the other direction towards Teitan High despite their confused protests.

_Glasses Kiddo? Seriously?_ Conan thought humorlessly, but then another thing came to mind. _In any case, I'm a terrible actor. I should've known how curious I'd be about two kids that don't act at all like kids._ He was nudged from his thoughts by the girl beside him, an amused ghost-of-a-smirk aimed at the three children.

"Don't look now, Edogawa-kun, but it looks like your adult twin has some new admirers." She was only proven right when he glanced over at his friends, all of whom had wide, glow-in-the-dark-bright eyes in the direction the high schoolers had just left (been dragged away) in.

"Shinichi-niisan is so handsome!" Ayumi bubbled excitedly, and the other two boys were too starstruck to even complain about how Ayumi seemed to develop a crush on everybody _except_ them. Not that the girl didn't like them at all (they were her very best friends since childhood; there was probably some universal rule about how childhood friends like theirs were together forever or something), but even _Ai _was probably higher in the running for her affections.

"Yeah, he's pretty awesome, huh? And he acknowledges us!" Mitsuhiko tittered, unable to hold in his happy jittering. They'd heard a lot about this "Shinichi-niisan" ever since becoming acquainted with Conan, but this was the first time they'd encountered him in person and held a real conversation with him. To say it was anything but life-changing would be an understatement.

"He must be seriously rich with how famous he is. I bet he could buy a whole bunch of unagi for us!" Rather than making some kind of mention of how the only person who liked unagi that much was Genta, the kids cheered in unison, anxious for the next time they would meet their detective senior.

_If only—_

"'If only they respected me that much'," Ai casually stated, startling him from his musings. "Something to that effect?" Oh, how he wanted to wipe that smirk from her face. It was frightening when she read his mind, especially when she worded it to the letter.

"He doesn't even know what he's done," Conan replied dryly, keeping a safe distance from the exuberant group and their conversation on whether the famous high school detective would be willing to let them tag along during one of his cases. It probably wouldn't matter if he let them or not, they could always just sneak into the crime scene as they always did. Or, more accurately, be there when it happened.

"Aren't you excited about Shinichi-niisan coming back, Conan-kun?" Ayumi asked innocently, feeling that her friend wasn't contributing enough to the general hype of the situation.

"Huh? O-oh, of course!"

_Yeah…right._

* * *

"Shinichi, what was that for?!" After having gotten a safe distance away from the grade schoolers, he'd let the two girls go and resumed walking as if he hadn't just forced them away from the others. Sonoko, dusting herself off from the bumpy ride, chose this moment to make an honest-to-goodness statement about how she felt.

"Ran, I think that huge case he was on has melted your husband's brain."

"Where'd they come from exactly? Conan-kun and Ai-chan, I mean," he asked suddenly, pointedly ignoring Sonoko's stabbing opinion. It was certainly an out-of-the-blue thing for Shinichi, having just gotten back from that "huge case" he was working on and missing a year's worth of his life, to take an interest in two children that were just a little bit out of the ordinary. Just a little bit.

"What do you mean? I remember telling you yesterday that Conan-kun is a distant relative of yours and Ai-chan is the daughter of one of the professor's friends."

"They told me the same thing, but I don't recall any relative of mine with the last name 'Edogawa'." _Not only that, but he and that little girl look much too intelligent to really be seven year olds. _

"What's with the sudden interest in Conan-kun and Ai-chan? I mean, they might look a little mature for their age—"

"A _little_? Ran, those kids are freaks. Like, seriously. That brat in glasses always says he learns things from TV, but some of the things he says are a bit too unreal. And don't even get me started on the girl. She gives me the chills. It's like they aren't children at all." This definitely caught Shinichi's attention, and even as Ran pouted and reprimanded her best friend for calling her little brother and his friend "freaks," he agreed that they weren't normal. Mentally, of course.

_Maybe Sonoko's on to something here. Maybe they _aren't_ kids. But then what? A Fountain of Youth doesn't even exist. Plus, it doesn't answer the question of _who_ they are, either. I'm almost certain Edogawa Conan and Haibara Ai are aliases, too. _

"Shinichi, are you coming? We're gonna be late!" Ran called from some twenty feet in front of him, waving for him to hurry up.

"Ah, yeah, I'll be right there!" _There's also this gaping hole in my memories. For the most part, I just need to get used to everything that's changed, but still, it's really frustrating not knowing what's been happening. Maybe if I could remember, things would become a lot clearer. Aarghh. I hate this feeling. I know that I know it. Why can't I remember?_

_Calm down. For now, I should work on observing those two kids. Something tells me that, whatever they're hiding, it's huge. _


End file.
